The Mirror and the Light

No answer. Prior Bolton did not build his garden walls high, or secure his fences. An ill-wisher can bend wattle or willow; through a fence of pliant hazel, a felon insinuate. He touches his heart and feels the knife, nestled between silk and linen.

‘Defence of a tower is easy,’ he says. ‘Even a garden tower. Anyone coming up, you just push them down again.’

‘You would relish that,’ Chapuys says. ‘They tell me you greatly enjoyed your tussle with the councillor Fitzguillaume. Really, Thomas, you are such a boy.’

‘Christophe?’ he calls. His voice curves in the stone spiral. ‘You are there?’

An answer echoes: ‘Where else?’ Christophe is surprised. He is always on guard, it is his early training as a thief. In his unoccupied moments, he sinks on his heels, his back against the wall, his head dropped as if he were dozing; but his ears are open, his eyes scanning for movement at the edge of his vision.

‘No one is there,’ he reassures the ambassador. ‘It is only Christophe.’ Chapuys settles back in his chair. ‘Eat up the strawberries,’ he tells him. ‘Write to Rome.’

‘But should one trust this fruit? To eat it raw?’ Chapuys frowns. ‘Chez-moi, we bake it in tarts.’

‘The Pope will forgive her, if she submits to save her life. Tell her you have asked for absolution for her. If you’re worried about the cost, I’ll cover it with Rome myself.’

‘I am more worried about my digestion. And I doubt she will credit this specious reasoning.’

‘Go to her first thing tomorrow, I’ll write you a pass.’ He leans towards the ambassador. ‘Tell her this. While Anne Boleyn was alive, there was no chance that Henry would restore her to the succession. But now, if she obeys him in every particular, her fortunes may look up.’

‘You are making her this offer?’ Chapuys raises an eyebrow. ‘Will Henry not prefer his bastard boy? I thought you favoured Richmond yourself. What has happened?’

‘Richmond cannot be put in place without great quarrel and grudge. Whichever lady the king has been married to – if he was ever married to anybody – the whole world agrees it was not to Richmond’s mother. As for any new heir he may get – the life of a young child, you cannot count on it from hour to hour. Tell Mary: if ever she is to compromise her conscience, now is the time, when she can do herself some good.’ He leans back in his chair. ‘Yes, of course she will despise herself afterwards. But that is the price. Tell her time will ease the sting of it.’

‘It seems to me,’ the ambassador says, ‘you are saying, you can live, but only as Cromwell permits. You can reign even – but only through Cromwell’s grace.’

‘If you wish to explain it like that.’ He has lost patience. ‘Explain it how you like. I will send her a document to sign. A deed of submission. She need not read it. In fact, she must not, as she may need to repudiate it later. But she must have a clerk copy it, because it cannot go to the king in my hand.’

‘No, that would wreck everything,’ Chapuys smiles. ‘She is not simple, you know.’

‘Tell her that from now on I will make sure she is protected. She will live at her ease, as a king’s daughter, and no one will trouble her to make the same prayers as I do, or to give up her saints, or her ceremonies. But then tell her – if she does not give way now, she is lost. I will regard her as the most obdurate and ungrateful woman who ever lived. I will not block the king’s will. And even if by some miracle she survives, she is dead to me. I take my leave of her for ever. I shall never come into her presence. I will never see her or speak to her again.’

A pause. ‘I see.’ The ambassador looks sardonic. ‘You had better write that yourself. I will carry your letter faithfully.’

‘Shall we go down?’

Chapuys winces as he stands, and rubs his back. ‘You first, my lord. I am so slow.’

He scoops the papers from the marble. ‘I’ll carry these.’ He is ahead of the ambassador. At the first landing he calls up, ‘I am not looking into them, I promise!’

Christophe is squatting, vigilant, in the posture he had imagined. Standing by him, another shape in the dimness. ‘Good evening, sir,’ the shape says softly. It is Mr Wriothesley, a sheaf of peonies in his hand.

In the parlour with the lapis tiles, the flame of a single wax candle shimmering in the blue, he makes his first draft; it is hard for him, to become the king’s daughter. At dawn he takes the draft back to the city, and in the morning light sits before it again: humble, trembling, obedient. Perhaps he should do this in a room alone; but he does not want to think about it too much.

He picks up a quill. Examines its tip. ‘This will require self-abasement.’

Richard Cromwell says, ‘Shall I go out and find somebody who’s better at it than you are?’

‘Richard Riche knows the art of creeping,’ Gregory offers. ‘And Wriothesley can crawl when required.’

He begins: ‘Most humbly prostrate before your Majesty …’

‘Try, prostrate at the feet of your Majesty,’ Gregory says.